Primavera | Page 3

the
wondering world;
When from the storied, sacred East afar,

Down
Indian gorges clothed in green,
With flower-rein'd tigers and with
ivory car
He came, the youthful god;
Beautiful Bacchus,
ivy-crown'd, his hair
Blown on the wind, and flush'd limbs bare,

And lips apart, and radiant eyes,
And ears that caught the coming

melodies,
As wave on wave of revellers swept abroad;
Wreathed
with vine-leaves, shouting, trampling onwards, With toss'd timbrel and
loud tambourine.
Alas! the disenchanting years have roll'd
On hearts and minds
becoming cold:
Mirth is gone from us; and the world is old.
O bright new-comer, fill'd with thoughts of joy,
Joy to be thine amid
these pleasant plains,
Know'st thou not, child, what surely coming
pains
Await thee, for that eager heart's annoy?
Misunderstanding,
disappointment, tears,
Wrong'd love, spoil'd hope, mistrust and
ageing fears,
Eternal longing for one perfect friend,
And unavailing
wishes without end?
Thou proud and pure of spirit, how must thou
bear
To have thine infinite hates and loves confined,
School'd, and
despised? How keep unquench'd and free
'Mid others' commerce and
economy
Such ample visions, oft in alien air
Tamed to the measure
of the common kind?
How hard for thee, swept on, for ever hurl'd

From hour to hour, bewilder'd and forlorn,
To move with clear eyes
and with steps secure,
To keep the light within, to fitly scorn
Those
all too possible and easy goals,
Trivial ambitions of soon-sated souls!

And, patient in thy purpose, to endure
The pity and the wisdom of
the world.
Vain, vain such warning to those happy ears!
Disturb not their delight!
By unkind powers
Doom'd to keep pace with the relentless Hours,

He, too, ere long, shall feel Earth's glory change;
Familiar names
shall take an accent strange,
A deeper meaning, a more human tone;

No more pass'd by, unheeded or unknown,
The things that then
shall be beheld through tears.
Yet, O just Nature, thou
Who, if men's hearts be hard, art always mild;

O fields and streams, and places undefiled,
Let your sweet airs be
ever on his brow,
Remember still your child.
Thou too, O human
world, if old desires,
If thoughts, not alien once, can move thee now,


Teach him not yet that idly he aspires
Where thou hast fail'd; not
soon let it be plain,
That all who seek in thee for nobler fires,
For
generous passion, spend their hopes in vain:
Lest that insidious Fate,
foe of mankind,
Who ever waits upon our weakness, try
With
whispers his unnerved and faltering mind,
Palsy his powers; for she
has spells to dry,
Like the March blast, his blood, turn flesh to stone,

And, conjuring action with necessity,
Freeze the quick will, and
make him all her own.
Come, then, as ever, like the Wind at morning!
Joyous, O Youth, in
the aged world renew
Freshness to feel the eternities around it,

Rains, stars, and clouds, light and the sacred dew.
The strong sun
shines above thee:
That strength, that radiance bring!
If Winter
come to Winter,
When shall men hope for Spring?
LAURENCE BINYON.

'Tis my twentieth year: dim, now, youth stretches behind me; Breaking
fresh at my feet, lies, like an ocean, the world. And despised seem, now,
those quiet fields I have travell'd: Eager to thee I turn, Life, and thy
visions of joy.
Fame I see, with her wreath, far off approaching to
crown me; Love, whose starry eyes fever my heart with desire:
And
impassion'd I yearn for the future, all unconscious, Ah, poor dreamer!
what ills life in its circle enfolds. Not more restless the boy, whose
eager, confident bosom The wide, unknown sea fills with a hunger to
roam.
Often beside the surge of the desolate ocean he paces;
Ingrate,
dreams of a sky brighter, serener than his.
Passionate soul! light holds
he a mother's tearful entreaties, Lightly leaves he behind all the sad
faces of home;
Never again, perchance, to behold them; lost in the
tempest, Or on some tropic shore dying in fever and pain!
MANMOHAN GHOSE.
TESTAMENTUM AMORIS

I cannot raise my eyelids up from sleep,
But I am visited with
thoughts of you;
Slumber has no refreshment half so deep
As the
sweet morn, that wakes my heart anew.
I cannot put away life's trivial care,
But you straightway steal on me
with delight:
My purest moments are your mirror fair;
My deepest
thought finds you the truth most bright.
You are the lovely regent of my mind,
The constant sky to my
unresting sea;
Yet, since 'tis you that rule me, I but find
A finer
freedom in such tyranny.
Were the world's anxious kingdoms govern'd so,
Lost were their
wrongs, and vanish'd half their woe!
LAURENCE BINYON.
AMAVIMUS, AMAMUS, AMABIMUS
Persephone, Persephone!
Still I fancy I can see
Thee amid the
daffodils.
Golden wealth thy basket fills;
Golden blossoms at thy
breast;
Golden hair that shames the West;
Golden sunlight round
thy head!
Ah! the golden years have fled;
Thee have reft, and me
have left
Here alone, thy loss to mourn.
Persephone, Persephone!
Still I fancy I can see
Her, as white and
still she lies:
Death has woo'd and won his prize.
White the
blossoms at her breast;
White and still her face at rest;
White the
moonbeams round her head.
Ah! the wintry years have fled;

Comfort lent and patience sent,
And my